| Chapter : | Introduction: Putting Ecological Economics into Sustainable Agricultural Practices |
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There is a wealth of literature that addresses the issue of sustainable development, and a more thorough review of that literature will be provided in the relevant sections in chapters 1, 2, and 5.
Ecological Economics
Neoclassical economics is based on a particular view of economic-ecological interactions that puts too much emphasis on inclusive, unlimited growth. In the 1980s, a new field of research—ecological economics—emerged to provide forums for alternative scientific endeavours outside the domains of the traditional disciplines (e.g., ecology and economics). It indicated an increasing recognition of the need for transdisciplinary work to integrate disciplinary frameworks. The roots of ecological economics can be traced back to the work of the 1960s and 1970s—for example, spaceship earth (see Boulding, 1966a), the laws of thermodynamics (see Georgescu-Roegen, 1971), and steady-state economics (see Daly, 1973). However, its contemporary rise was launched in the late 1980s by a group of concerned scholars (e.g., Robert Costanza, Herman Daly, and Richard Norgaard) who attempted to address the problems of sustainability that were not being adequately addressed by the existing approaches (Costanza & Daly, 1987). Ecological economics grew out of the criticism that traditional ecology does not embrace human dimensions and that conventional economics overlooks the consequences of unrestrained economic growth (Costanza, 1991). This alternative interpretation goes beyond the perspective of neoclassical economics to view the economy and humanity as subsystems of ecosystems. In theory, the major objectives of ecological economics are to fill the gap between ecology and economics and to advocate a transdisciplinary framework that encourages productive dialogue and synthesis across a broad range of disciplines and approaches. In practice, ecological economics calls for control mechanisms for keeping economic systems in balance with ecosystems.
A detailed review of the present situation of ecological economics from an international and a Chinese perspective will be provided in